The document discusses how religious identities and views are expressed on social media platforms like Facebook. It notes that while "Christian" is the most popular religious view listed on Facebook, many religious young people do not accurately disclose their religious identities or views on their profiles due to perceptions of social undesirability of being seen as overly religious. The document also discusses other social media sites oriented towards specific religious communities.

1. Anybody???

2. Relationships
Memory Occupational role
Culture
Sex roles
Gender
Interests Personal Experience
Politics
RELIGION Behavior patterns

4. • The religious views box made its debut in 2006
• Political views follows suit.
• MySpace eg
• Since then, Facebook's beliefs box has generated a staggering
number of entries. So exactly how many users put down "beer"
as their religion? How many "Catholic"?

5. • Company spokeswoman Meredith Chin declined to answer
such questions, citing user privacy.
• But she gave hints and not surprisingly, the most popular faith
professed is "Christian". The category is so dominant that for
this list, Facebook's statisticians insisted on combining such
other designations as "Protestant," "Catholic" and "Mormon"
under the label. As a result, the second most popular entry on
the list is "Islam," followed by "Atheist."
• Jedi makes a grand entrance at No.10

6. • An excerpt from a recent New York Times Magazine article
(Jacobs, 2007) simultaneously illustrates the central role that social networking Web sites have
come to play in young people‟s self-presentation, and the inappropriateness that this age group attaches to an
Focusing on peer interactions among college
overly religious self-disclosure.
students, the article quotes a Harvard undergraduate who
describes, what she portrays to be, a typical peer encounter:
• You might run into someone at a party, and then you Facebook
them: what are their interests? Are they crazy-religious, is their
favorite quote from the Bible? Everyone takes great pains over
presenting themselves. It‟s like an embodiment of your
personality” (p. 48).
• The Barna Group, a Christian ministry research and consulting
firm (Kinnaman & Lyons, 2007).

7. • Given the importance of social networking Web sites to
contemporary youth culture, and given the potentially complex
relationship between religion‟s significance in the lives of
young people and the accuracy of their self-disclosures about
religion, this study aimed to address the following two research
questions:
• 1) How accurately do religious young people express their
religious identities in their Facebook profiles? and 2) To what
extent does social desirability shape these young people‟s
religious self-disclosures in these profiles?

8. • The panel of respondents was assembled using snowball
sampling
• drawn from the membership of a campus organization affiliated
with a conservative evangelical Christian denomination.
• Sunday services, campus ministry organizations.
• Used fb, once every other week to three to four times per day.

9. • I don‟t think I liked the choices that were up there, I think they
had just … let‟s see … Religious Views … oh, it‟s a blank box
… ok, I don‟t know to be honest … I guess, just „cause, like, I
don‟t consider myself like Baptist or like Church of Christ or
Catholic or anything specific, I kind of … I don‟t know … like,
Christian would be just the basic overall thing … so I don‟t
know why I haven‟t put that on there. I don‟t think that I‟ve
ever really noticed the religious box.
• Jack, the 23-year-old political science major, said, “I wouldn‟t
deny religion but I‟m not the sort of person to wear like a sign
… I just don‟t feel the need to broadcast that sort of thing …
I‟m not typically the type of person to be like, „Hi I‟m Jack,
I‟m a Christian.

10. • Crystal said that she did not write anything in this field because
she did not want her profile visitors to generate negative
impressions of her based on this cue. She said that, for the
same reason that she did not overtly identify herself as a
Christian, she also changed the Political Views field on her
profile from “Conservative” to “Moderate”:

11. • The resolve demonstrated by this study‟s respondents to self-
disclose in a socially desirable manner reflects Goffman‟s
(1959) classic observation that the presentation of self is a
carefully controlled performance of one‟s character before an
audience.
• The Internet allows its users to be less accurate in their self-
disclosures, and influenced by social desirability to a greater
degree, than many other communication venues.

12. • In one survey, young people said they perceived “a lot” or
“some” of born-again Christians to be anti-homosexual (91%),
judgmental (87%), hypocritical (85%), old-fashioned (78%),
too involved in politics (75%), out of touch with reality (72%),
insensitive to others (70%), boring (64%), not accepting of
other faiths (64%), and confusing (61%).

13. So what does yours say? Are/were you willing
to go public with your religious views?

14. • Not religious: Abisek,agni,prajeeth,
joylsna,agnostic,rhitwick,shino,sharhad,sandesh,vivek.
• Religious:avinii,bala
murugan,fiyaz,Jason,juby,monisha,sabith,shafeek,sithara,Vishn
u c,
• Neither:ahsan,amuda,ashwathi,boni,deepa,dileep,harsha,reality,
john, sunnie,hasan,Naveen,nideesh,priyanka,ramin,
sangeeta,mr.haneef,sumanth,teju,thulsi,varisha,Vishnu

15. • Three characteristics of young people‟s religious systems
suggest that religion will not figure prominently in their
Facebook profiles.
• First, lack of conversations about religion. Smith (2005, p. 124)
• Second, inability to express personal religious beliefs(p. 131).
• And disapproval of excessive religious identification

16. • CHRISTIAN
• ChristianNetwork , Hisholyspace.com, Holypal.com, Imagine Yourself,
Mypraize
• UltimateTube, Xianz
• INTERFAITH
• Beliefnet‟s Community is the social networking area of the largest interfaith
website.
• PeaceNext is the social networking site of the Council for a Parliament of
the World‟s Religions.
• ISLAMIC
• Muslimsocial.com, Muxlim, Naseeb
• JEWISH
• Shmooze is a general Jewish social networking site with an emphasis on
relationships.
• NEO-PAGAN
• PaganSpace.net is a social networking site for followers of Earth-based
religions, such as Wicca, Asatru, druidism and goddess-based faiths.

17. Most Engaging Pages on fb
Name Fans Interactions
1. Jesus Daily 5,034,761 2,127,067
2. The Bible 6,926,620 1,119,413
3. Justin Bieber 26,404,878 1,075,159
4. Lady Gaga 33,214,214 893,979
5. Manchester United 12,868,950 834,305
6. Real Madrid C.F. 12,774,646 822,342
7. Mario Teguh 3,939,097 775,420
8. FC Barcelona 13,912,175 771,775
9. Necip Fazil Kisakurek 920,057 529,674
10. Vin Diesel 22,758,954 464,003
11. The Twilight Saga 20,452,376 442,105
12. Avril Lavigne 18,372,875 422,470
13. We are Khaled Said 1,198,347 419,336
14. Jesus Christ 2,400,855 416,320
15. ILoveAllaah.com 5,432,763 373,575
16. Dios Es Bueno! 3,358,951 360,664
17. Lil Wayne 23,616,701 360,228
18. LA Lakers 7,941,899 333,084
19. NBA 8,435,891 332,770
20. Müzik Keyfi 1,364,733 332,641

18. But You Can't Poke the Pope.
• A high-speed version of the way religion has moved into each
new medium, from the days of print onwards, and tried to
leverage it to drive ethical, social and political agendas.
• "We recognize that a church that does not communicate ceases
to be a church.“
• Iran and Indonesian imams

19. • So has fb gotten religion????
• But today these moves leave room for amusement: The
Vatican's Facebook app seems gently kitsch, and Indonesia's
suggestion seems naïve.